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About Ian David Marsden

Ian David Marsden

IllustratorCartoonistFlash AnimatorDesigner

Ian graduated from the Formen + Farben Art School, Zurich and decided to start an apprenticeship as a graphic artist in a local advertising agency. While studying graphic design, Ian sold and published his first cartoons at age 16 to Swiss satirica… Read More

Ian David Marsden

IllustratorCartoonistFlash AnimatorDesigner

Ian graduated from the Formen + Farben Art School, Zurich and decided to start an apprenticeship as a graphic artist in a local advertising agency. While studying graphic design, Ian sold and published his first cartoons at age 16 to Swiss satirical magazine Nebelspalter, for which Ian became the youngest ever cartoonist. That same year he started publishing in a variety of Swiss and European magazines and newspapers. 1986 he opened his own studio in the old town of Zurich.

A self-written and drawn segment with characters of his own creation followed on the children’s TV show Playschool, on Swiss television. Ian was also consulted to illustrate advertising campaigns for the likes of VISA and drew recycling comic strips which were printed on millions of Coca Cola cans. His first book was published in 1988 entitled: “Zurich, my little town”.

Shortly thereafter Ian relocated to New York City where he took illustration classes at Pratt Manhattan and had his first experiences with Mac computers and digital computer graphics.

Ian subsequently worked for a variety of clients and publications and has sold cartoons to MAD Magazine, The New Yorker and many others internationally.

Ian lived and worked in the Los Angeles area for 10 years, where in addition to working as an illustrator he also became very involved in web graphics and design and Macromedia Flash animation. An original co-founder of Sham Records Multimedia based in Santa Monica, he worked on a wide variety of cutting edge Shockwave and Flash interactive websites and animations at the dawn of these technologies.

In 1999 Ian became the first artist to draw the so-called ‘Google Doodles’ for the then emerging Google.com. He has also created web graphics, flash animation, posters, album covers for such clients as infospace.com, birthdayalarm.com, Fox Sports Best Damn Sports Show Period, La Toya Jackson and many others. In 2001 Ian was one of the winners of the Klasky Csupo Global Tantrum animated joke competition and in 2002 Ian was nominated for the National Cartoonist Society’s New Media award.

In 2002 Ian graduated from the Academy of Entertainment Technology (AET), Santa Monica College as a computer animation major. He was the recipient of the Mary Pickford scholarship.

Ian addition to the above Ian has also designed characters and mascots for major events such as the official mascot for the Ski World Championship 2003 in St.Moritz and the main mascot and characters for Expo.02, the Swiss national exposition.

In 2006 Ian moved from Los Angeles to Europe. Thanks to high-speed internet connections he now lives and works in a small village in the South of France, where he lives with his wife and 3 daughters. Apart from being an illustrator he is also working on graphic novels and his own character-driven illustrated children’s books. Speaking 4 languages fluently allows Ian to work quickly and efficiently with clients all over the world.